Ugly Day Drags Markets Down for Week

By

Matt Phillips

Jul 16, 2010 4:28 pm ET

Earnings season is failing to reassure investors still worried about the economy.

Friday’s falloff in the equities markets — Dow down 2.5%, S&P off 2.9% — was ugly enough to pull stocks into the red for the week. The Dow finished the week down about 1%, the S&P lower by 1.2%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8%.

The Russell 2000 was down 0.8% on the week, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index — or SOX — was lower by about 0.6%. If you’re looking for a good sign for stocks, you might find some ray of hope in the fact that these indexes — which are sometimes thought to lead the broader markets — didn’t fall as much as the majors did. But that seems like thin soup.

The 10-year yield continued to nose lower, falling back below the 3.00% level it reclaimed earlier this week and closing Friday at just above 2.94%. That’s not a great sign for stocks. Copper, a barometer of demand for industrial commodities, was down about 4%. (Even gold, which has rallied pretty much alone during the correction, gave in this week, falling 1.8%.) Nymex Crude for August delivery was pretty much flat on the week, at 0.1%.

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